On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on a quest to become the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century. This blog chronicles that journey. With apologies to Joan Didion, I call it THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PAINTING.

B-Dubya...First Impressions, Fifth Time Around

At which point I go Whoa. I would have bet my life that-and I'm giving it to you from memory--the first lines of Beowulf were:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in need of a wife.

Also, who the hell is Ellen Fremedon? I might have dated her in high school. And where is Antonio Banderas? I see no mention.

So. I'm set back a pace, what with the Old English staring me in the face. Then I look to my right and see that, on the facing page, appears Mr. Haney's translation. Leafing ahead, I see this is a pattern that persists throughout. And the first stanza goes like:

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone byand the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.We have heard of those princes' heroic campaigns.

"So."

Man, I love that as a starter.

My father once told me that if he got bored with a book he only read the pages on the right hand side, and that sped him through the boring stuff until he got back to a place where he was interested in the goings on.